The Cutting Garden: Growing and Arranging Garden Flowers

by Sarah Raven, Pia Tryde (Photographs), Penelope Hobhouse (Foreword)

This practical guide shows how to grow decorative flowers and foliage and use them to create floral arrangements plans, plant and maintain a well-stocked cutting garden, and demonstrates how to create arrangements ranging from simple bunches to romantic hanging globes, swags and medallions.

Genres: Gardening, Nonfiction

168 pages, Hardcover

First published October 17, 1996

Reviews

[Meredith · Rating 4 out of 5]

First off, I will admit that the arrangements themselves are fairly dated looking.

However, the information on planning, working and using the produce from a cutting garden is supremely detailed and usable.

I really appreciated the encyclopaedic section on flowers and foliage, organised by season and by colour. I wanted to achieve a list of plants that I can use through the year, or at least spring-autumn, and I was able to do this thanks to this section. The tips on what goes well with what else were particularly helpful. I don't need to have too many types and endless variety. I'd be happy to have a bouquet or two every week and if it's more or less the same for a few weeks in a row I really don't mind. On the other hand I'm fairly picky on colours and shapes. This section was extremely extremely helpful and I think I've been able to come up with a list that will be fairly useful and complete for myself.

Her section on what needs to be done when, again broken down by type of task and season, and very detailed instructions on sowing seeds, taking cuttings etc is exceptional. From starting with a complete list of what you will need down to detailed instructions I have not seen printed elsewhere, this really stands out. I wish this came in a booklet form. I'll be checking her website to see if I can find the same information there.

[Nathan Albright · Rating 4 out of 5]

I borrowed this book from a friend of mine who deeply loves cuttings and flowers, and as someone with at least a passing interest in gardening myself [1], I figured it would be an enjoyable book to read. As it happens, this book, which was published by Reader's Digest, is not quite as amusing as one would hope. It is also pretty demanding on the reader, assuming that the reader has enough time and enough skill to work on very complicated garden plots as well as to master all kinds of techniques for preserving the life and beauty of cuttings. Having had a few relatives of mine who enjoyed puttering around in the garden to good effect, like my maternal grandfather and stepfather, I am familiar with the high demands of time that gardening makes on those who want to do it well. To be an accomplished gardener is by no means an easy task, and this book does not in any way sugarcoat that difficulty or seek to minimize it. On the contrary, it appears to be directed to those who already know and like gardening and are willing to put forth the effort to do it very well, with the aim of creating beautiful floral arrangements.


The structure of the book makes it plain that the author has practical aims in mind with this book and not aesthetic aims as far as literary flair is concerned. The slightly more than 150 pages of this beautifully illustrated book are divided into several sections. After a foreword and introduction, the author discusses how to plan and stock a garden, looking at designs for a cutting garden, a cutting patch in a larger garden, and a mixed garden that includes some areas for cutting and others that are designed to be more attractive. The author then looks at various plants that blossom and flower during all four seasons, in order from spring to winter. After this the author spends some time on flower arranging, looking at issues like cutting, conditioning, aftercare, selection of a proper vase, as well as the art of creating arrangements in all four seasons. The rest of the book, which takes up a significant portion of the overall material contained here, is devoted to looking at flowers and foliage through the seasons. This is the sort of place where readers might expect more humor, but the author appears keen on keeping up a dry sort of understatement, commenting on plants that spread and self-seed and on how to best care for plants in ways that are most aesthetically pleasing, which is what most people would look for from a book like this.


It is ironic that a book that is devoted to something so aesthetically pleasing as flower arrangements would be written in such a workmanlike fashion. Yet ironies abound in this book. This is the sort of book one could easily imagine being the subject of interest for people in Regency England, or the sort of book that would prompt one to recognize the persistent influence of ideas about the picturesque, seeking harmony but not rigid symmetry, and a balance among various potential pitfalls when it comes to taking care of plants in gardens as well as in arrangements. If this book, for example, is far too demanding in its skill for gardening to be of use to someone like myself, it is at least a very practical book that I can see many people using profitably, especially those who enjoy arranging and cutting flowers for their own gardens or for floral arrangements. And far be it from me to disparage a book that does its job so well, even if its ambitions as far as how books are written are perhaps more modest than I would wish for my own reading pleasure.


[1] See, for example:


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[Linnae · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars: Good information, with a few take-aways.

This one is split up into 3 different sections: Planning and Stocking the Garden, Flower Arranging, and Flowers and Foliage Through the Seasons. The first part has 3 different garden plans, for a whole cutting garden, a small cutting patch, and a mixed garden. I like reading garden plans, though I have yet to implement one that I found in a book. Mostly, I tend to have my own ideas about planning such things. Still--fun to see some different ways to do it.

Probably what was most helpful to me in the "Flower Arranging" section was the chapter on conditioning the flowers. Treatment of various types of stems (sappy, woody, etc.), as well as how best to keep those flowers looking fresh for the longest time after they've been cut.

Finally, the index at the back with all the flowers was great. Mostly basic info, but also included "Best varieties for cutting" and tips on conditioning for some species.

For more reviews, plus updates on my cutting garden, go to my blog: www.ofbooksandblooms.com

[Pam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sarah Raven wrote this book as if the reader plans to create a specific garden for flowers to cut. As such she included layouts and planting advice. But the last three-quarters of the book is devoted to specific plants by season and the arrangements that can be made with them. This is the part of the book that I found incredibly interesting despite the fact that I am looking to include good "cutting flowers" in my greater landscape. I loved the wide diversity of plant materials she recommends including shrubs and "weeds" from the roadside. I highly recommend this book to anyone who gardens and brings in bouquets. By no means is her list of materials complete but it is a wonderful listing of many common and unlikely materials. She addresses specific plants very well including all necessary gardening information (zone, size etc) as well as specific varieties and necessary conditioning.

[Deanna Hasse · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought the best part of the book was that it would discuss different cut flowers/foliage you could grow for each season (spring, summer, fall, winter). It was aesthetically beautiful. But I didn’t enjoy reading it overall. Good reference book

[Ruth Brumby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful illustrations and very clear informative text.

[Fiona Harrison]

This is a lovely book for garden planning and flower arranging inspiration. I use it constantly and return to it often when buying new plants.

[Audrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Contained some good chapters on growing a cutting garden (but made me realize that it is all probably more work than I want, just to have some vases of cut flowers in my home through the summer -- I'd rather just buy them at the farmer's market or grocery store).

[Iacobien · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful. The book gave me a lot of useful ideas about the layout of a cutting garden, flowers, plants, bushes and trees.